Get your mini royalty ready, the Canada Day Mini King and Queen contest is gearing up to return for this summer’s holiday.
After being forced to cancel the contest during the COVID-19 pandemic, organizer Melissa Gushulak said it’s time to have a return to regular events in and around town as the pandemic restrictions ease.
“I’m trying to bring back some normalcy after COVID.” she explained.
“The families miss it. I work at a school and we had our first big school event, a family picnic, and it was a huge, huge success. Seeing all those families and kids back out in the community being able to do stuff together makes it like ‘wow, we really missed this kind of stuff.’ It’s obviously going to be a little smaller, maybe a little different, but I want to get it back and running because I want to bring some normalcy back to families and kids.”
To that end the Mini King and Queen contest will take place as it has in previous years, though Gushulak said she still has to finalize the location for the contest, considering the Point will likely still be underwater by the time Canada Day rolls around.
“I’m just going to have to find a place to hold the event, but I have some materials and a bit of donations so we’re just going to go with it,” she said.
“I just have to open up registration, which will be next week, and then hopefully by then, find a place that I can hold the event. I have done it at the museum, out front, in the past. I usually like to have some kind of stage and a soundsystem, so I have to figure that out and then we’ll have registration for five or six days.”
The event will be open to those who are between the ages of four and seven as of July 1, 2022. Gushulak said she generally tries to get five contestants for each side of the contest, and each entry has a $5 fee to help offset some of the associated costs involved with holding the usually-annual event. Registration will open this sunday, June 19, and remain open until Friday, June 24.
Gushulak has been a long-time organizer of the competition, and brought the event to town after seeing how well it was received in Emo as part of the Fall Fair.
“I had originally started Mini King, because Gloria Wood was doing Mini Queen in town,”
“And my oldest son won in Emo when he was little, and he had a blast so i just thought, ‘let’s bring this to Fort.’ So I joined with Gloria, and then when she retired she passed the girls on to me, so I have both.”
Those want to sign their child up for the Mini King or Mini Queen contest, or who are just looking for more information, are invited to call Gushulak at 275-8526. Registration can also be done through Gushulak also shared that anyone interested in donating items for prize packages for each contestant, as well as contributing to the grand prizes, can contact her as well.
Keep an eye on the Fort Frances Daily Bulletin for updates on the Mini King and Queen contest, including the announcement of the final location of the event once finalized.
